Crime Stories?

[Surgebound Rainspren]

I've kind of had crime stories on the brain lately, but good ones are hard to find. any recommendations?

I enjoyed Bones are Forever by Kathy Reichs but I found her other book to be lackluster. 

 

[Iarwainiel I]

I heartily recommend:

• The Bryant & May series by Christopher Fowler - first book is "Full Dark House"
  Octogenarian detectives in London solving unusual crimes via unusual methods; they lead the fictional Peculiar Crimes Unit. (BTW, though I am "old aggie," these gentlemen are much older than me. )
• The Chet & Bernie series by Spencer Quinn - first book is "Dog On It"
  Private detective and his dog solve crimes; stories are told from the point of view of the dog!!!!! Highly creative, good action sequences, funny at times - overall great who-done-it stories.

These fall in the "mystery" category, so they are about solving crimes - - hope that's what you're looking for.

(FYI - Neither of these series has gratuitous sex, violence, language, etc. They are on the level with Brandon's stuff in that regard.)

Edited May 11, 2015 by old aggie

[-Deleted-]

I know a lot of people tend to use crime as a term to encompass both the crime genre, detective genre, and mysteries, so I'll list some stuff from all of these lol. They're all great genres anyway.

-Inherent Vice, by Pynchon (detective)

-Crying of Lot 49, Pynchon (mystery; conspiracy)

-Against the Day, Pynchon (some plot lines are mystery, crime, and detective)

-New York Trilogy, by Auster (detective)

-Father Brown Stories, by Chesterton (detective & crime)

-The man Who Was Thursday, Chesterton (detective, mystery & crime)

-Gun, With Occasional Music, by Lethem (detective & crime)

-Amnesia Moon, Lethem (Mystery)

-Savage Detectives, by Balano (mystery; *not actually detectives*)

-2666, Balano (Part 3 is pure crime; rest of the book not so much)

-Pulp, by Bukowski (detective)

-Edwin Drood, by Dickens (murder mystery)

 

I have heard excellent things about the Thursday Next series and the Sookie Stackhouse novels; I have failed to read either at the moment, but would really like to. They are both blends of mystery and fantasy from what i understand.

 

But the above titles should offer a pretty large variety among crime, detective, and mystery fiction. All of those authors are drastically different from one another, and all have very interesting takes on the genres.

 

EDIT: another just occurred to me: both the Dirk Gently books by Douglas Adams. Science-fiction/fantasy/comedy detective stories written by the genius behind Hitchhiker's Guide. And a book called Welcome To Hard Times by E.L Doctorow, which I badly want to read, is about a town's reaction to a crime that practically destroys the entire town. I love the author and it sounds great, and sounds like it would be classified as crime. 

Edited May 11, 2015 by Nait Sabes

[Moonskin]

Gillian Flynn's Sharp objects is terrific (even more than Gone girl to my taste) and pretty much everything written by Fred Vargas 

[Kipper]

One of the most fascinating crime books I read recently was Invisible, by James Patterson and a another writer. Gripping.